no A FEW MEMORIES
fallacy to believe that all players must of necessity act off as well as on the stage. Many of them do, I admit, but most of the famous ones are extremely simple in real life. I remember once, in an animated discussion on the theatre with his Eminence Cardinal Manning, citing many excellent examples to prove that his theory that all actors must eventually grow into "shams" was not true. This was after my retirement (which event, he informed me, he had prayed for), and he saw that I spoke dispassionately. He listened attentively to all I had to say upon the subject, but was not in the least convinced. His prejudice against the stage was deep-rooted. " From our cradles," he said, " we all have a tendency to act Small boys pretend to be men, soldiers, anything but what they really are. Tiny girls play at being mothers, cradling their dolls. The so-called art of acting increases this tendency in those who witness it almost as much as in those who practise it I cannot conceive how the latter can escape being led in time to an unconscious development of artificiality or exaggeration in their thoughts, and, as a natural result, in their speech and manner." His dislike for the theatre was so marked that he could see no good in it To quote his own words,